[Buddha-l] Wealth and excess

[Vicente Gonzalez]

jkirk wrote:

j> The Buddha left punishment up to the secular rulers, kings or
j> chiefs in his day (and of course consequences to the working of
j> karma).  Mass crimes would not be eradicated by mass killing.
j> Only a few members of any conspiracy get their just deserts in
j> secular courts. The rest stay on to perpetuate the mass culture
j> that led to the crimes in the first place.

sorry maybe my message was not enough clear with the use of the word
"genocides" for both the authors and the events (I hope my practice in
this list will improve my English).

The question was knowing if you (or anyone) will kill only one
individual to save  billion of lifes. Or in the contrary, you don't
kill one individual then allowing the death of billion people.

There are many famous examples to illustrate this problem.
One is the famous episode of a Boddhisatva travelling in a boat, who
killed one man in order to save 500 Bodhisattvas. It is frequently
used today: http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/tib/ctbw.htm

Another one is with Mahakasyapa, who wanted to save a whole village
from attackers by rescuing magically all the people inside his bowl.
But when he looked inside the bowl it was plenty of blood.

The two are interesting because both men were arhants, therefore they
known about delusion, live and death. However, they cannot resist the
impulse to help others, despite they known it was not accordance with
the final truth but a deluded action.

In these episodes, an interesting thing is the power of compassion
but also to affirm the self and the attachment to a deluded Reality,
even they can drive to defend killing with heavy arguments.
These episodes shows how compassion can surpass the final knowledge of
Reality, except in the case of a Buddha. And from another side, it
forces to ask if enlightened activity also can be empty of compassion,
and therefore where is the difference regarding living in a empty
dwelling. 


j> I don't see that the Chan story helps in this instance--Jingshan
j> probably felt it was better to eat than to go hungry?

I think Jingshan said that one was compassionate because he saved the
sheep before any other consideration. The other one was emancipated
because he show awareness of the delusion of life and death.

Both are the main attitudes in Buddhist Ethics in front these
problems; knowing if they must be looked from compassion or from
emancipation arguments.

The dialogue is to solve that, I think


best regards,